The Big Book of Classic Fantasy

by The Big Book of Classic Fantasy (retail) (epub)

  “Now, as you might guess, I was crazy enough to find out what had scared this Nelson Smith into trying to swim the Pacific. He told me a story that seemed to fit pretty well with mine, only when it come to the scary part he shut up like a clam, that aggravating way some men have. I give it up at last for just man-foolishness, and we begun to scheme to get away.

  “Anita moped some while we talked it over. I realized how she must be feeling, so I explained to her that it was right needful for us to get with our kind again. If we stayed with her we should probably quarrel like cats, and maybe even kill each other out of pure human cussedness. She cheered up considerable after that, and even, I thought, got a little anxious to have us leave. At any rate, when we begun to provision up the little floater, which we had anchored to the big island by a cable of twisted bark, the green nuts fell all over the ground, and Nelson found more turtle nests in a day than I had in weeks.

  “During them days I really got fond of Nelson Smith. He was a companionable body, and brave, or he wouldn’t have been a professional aeronauter, a job that was rightly thought tough enough for a woman, let alone a man. Though he was not so well educated as me, at least he was quiet and modest about what he did know, not like some men, boasting most where there is least to brag of.

  “Indeed, I misdoubt if Nelson and me would not have quit the sea and the air together and set up housekeeping in some quiet little town up in New England, maybe, after we had got away, if it had not been for what happened when we went. I never, let me say, was so deceived in any man before nor since. The thing taught me a lesson and I never was fooled again.

  “We was all ready to go, and then one morning, like a parting gift from Anita, come a soft and favoring wind. Nelson and I run down the beach together, for we didn’t want our floater to blow off and leave us. As we was running, our arms full of coconuts, Nelson Smith stubbed his bare toe on a sharp rock, and down he went. I hadn’t noticed, and was going on.

  “But sudden the ground begun to shake under my feet, and the air was full of a queer, grinding, groaning sound, like the very earth was in pain.

  “I turned around sharp. There sat Nelson, holding his bleeding toe in both fists and giving vent to such awful words as no decent sea-going lady would ever speak nor hear to!

  “ ‘Stop it, stop it!’ I shrieked at him, but ’twas too late.

  “Island or no island, Anita was a lady, too! She had a gentle heart, but she knowed how to behave when she was insulted.

  “With one terrible, great roar a spout of smoke and flame belched up out o’ the heart of Anita’s crater hill a full mile into the air!

  “I guess Nelson stopped swearing. He couldn’t have heard himself, anyways. Anita was talking now with tongues of flame and such roars as would have bespoke the raging protest of a continent.

  “I grabbed that fool man by the hand and run him down to the water. We had to swim good and hard to catch up with our only hope, the floater. No bark rope could hold her against the stiff breeze that was now blowing, and she had broke her cable. By the time we scrambled aboard great rocks was falling right and left. We couldn’t see each other for a while for the clouds of fine gray ash.

  “It seemed like Anita was that mad she was flinging stones after us, and truly I believe that such was her intention. I didn’t blame her, neither!

  “Lucky for us the wind was strong and we was soon out of range.

  “ ‘So!’ says I to Nelson, after I’d got most of the ashes out of my mouth, and shook my hair clear of cinders. ‘So, that was the reason you up and left sudden when you was there before! You aggravated that island till the poor thing druv you out!’

  “ ‘Well,’ says he, and not so meek as I’d have admired to see him, ‘how could I know the darn island was a lady?’

  “ ‘Actions speak louder than words,’ says I. ‘You should have knowed it by her ladylike behavior!’

  “ ‘Is volcanoes and slingin’ hot rocks ladylike?’ he says. ‘Is snakes ladylike? T’other time I cut my thumb on a tin can, I cussed a little bit. Say—just a li’l’ bit! An’ what comes at me out o’ all the caves, and out o’ every crack in the rocks, and out o’ the very spring o’ water where I’d been drinkin’? Why snakes! Snakes, if you please, big, little, green, red, and sky-blue-scarlet! What’d I do? Jumped in the water, of course. Why wouldn’t I? I’d ruther swim and drown than be stung or swallowed to death. But how was I t’ know the snakes come outta the rocks because I cussed?’

  “ ‘You, couldn’t,’ I agrees, sarcastic. ‘Some folks never knows a lady till she up and whangs ’em over the head with a brick. A real, gentle, kind-like warning, them snakes were, which you would not heed! Take shame to yourself, Nelly,’ says I, right stern, ‘that a decent little island like Anita can’t associate with you peaceable, but you must hurt her sacredest feelings with language no lady would stand by to hear!’

  “I never did see Anita again. She may have blew herself right out of the ocean in her just wrath at the vulgar, disgustin’ language of Nelson Smith. I don’t know. We was took off the floater at last, and I lost track of Nelson just as quick as I could when we was landed at Frisco.

  “He had taught me a lesson. A man is just full of mannishness, and the best of ’em ain’t good enough for a lady to sacrifice her sensibilities to put up with.

  “Nelson Smith, he seemed to feel real bad when he learned I was not for him, and then he apologized. But apologies weren’t no use to me. I could never abide him, after the way he went and talked right in the presence of me and my poor, sweet lady friend, Anita!”

  * * *

  —

  Now I am well versed in the lore of the sea in all ages. Through mists of time I have enviously eyed wild voyagings of sea rovers who roved and spun their yarns before the stronger sex came into its own, and ousted man from his heroic pedestal. I have followed—across the printed page—the wanderings of Odysseus. Before Gulliver I have burned the incense of tranced attention; and with reverent awe considered the history of one Munchausen, a baron. But alas, these were only men!

  In what field is not woman our subtle superior?

  Meekly I bowed my head, and when my eyes dared lift again, the ancient mariness had departed, leaving me to sorrow for my surpassed and outdone idols. Also with a bill for macaroons and tea of such incredible proportions that in comparison therewith I found it easy to believe her story!

  Stella Benson (1892–1933) was an English poet, novelist, and travel writer. Although absent from the literary canon, Stella Benson was an unsung hero of the twentieth century to her contemporaries. She began writing poetry at the age of fourteen and may have inherited her love for the written word from an aunt, Mary Cholmondeley, who was a novelist. Much of her work was inspired by her suffragist beliefs and included the themes of isolation and tragedy that mirrored her experiences in World War I, as well as the lives of women she met on her travels. Her third novel, Living Alone (1919), is full of odd and witty tales. Benson claims that Living Alone, excerpted here, is a book only for the magically inclined minority, and once someone reads “Magic Comes to a Committee” they’ll understand why.

  Magic Comes to a Committee

  (EXCERPT FROM LIVING ALONE)

  Stella Benson

  CHAPTER I

  MAGIC COMES TO A COMMITTEE

  THIS IS NOT A REAL BOOK. It does not deal with real people, nor should it be read by real people. But there are in the world so many real books already written for the benefit of real people, and there are still so many to be written, that I cannot believe that a little alien book such as this, written for the magically inclined minority, can be considered too assertive a trespasser.

  * * *

  —

  There were six women, seven chairs, and a table in an otherwise unfurnished room in an unfashionable part of London. Three of the women were of the kind that has no lif
e apart from committees. They need not be mentioned in detail. The names of two others were Miss Meta Mostyn Ford and Lady Arabel Higgins. Miss Ford was a good woman, as well as a lady. Her hands were beautiful because they paid a manicurist to keep them so, but she was too righteous to powder her nose. She was the sort of person a man would like his best friend to marry. Lady Arabel was older: she was virtuous to the same extent as Achilles was invulnerable. In the beginning, when her soul was being soaked in virtue, the heel of it was fortunately left dry. She had a husband, but no apparent tragedy in her life. These two women were obviously not native to their surroundings. Their eyelashes brought Bond Street—or at least Kensington—to mind; their shoes were mudless; their gloves had not been bought in the sales. Of the sixth woman the less said the better.

  All six women were there because their country was at war, and because they felt it to be their duty to assist it to remain at war for the present. They were the nucleus of a committee on War Savings, and they were waiting for their Chairman, who was the Mayor of the borough. He was also a grocer.

  Five of the members were discussing methods of persuading poor people to save money. The sixth was making spots on the table with a pen.

  They were interrupted, not by the expected Mayor, but by a young woman, who came violently in by the street door, rushed into the middle of the room, and got under the table. The members, in surprise, pushed back their chairs and made ladylike noises of protest and inquiry.

  “They’re after me,” panted the person under the table.

  All seven listened to thumping silence for several seconds, and then, as no pursuing outcry declared itself, the Stranger arose, without grace, from her hiding-place.

  To anybody except a member of a committee it would have been obvious that the Stranger was of the Cinderella type, and bound to turn out a heroine sooner or later. But perception goes out of committees. The more committees you belong to, the less of ordinary life you will understand. When your daily round becomes nothing more than a daily round of committees you might as well be dead.

  The Stranger was not pretty; she had a broad, curious face. Her clothes were much too good to throw away. You would have enjoyed giving them to a decayed gentlewoman.

  “I stole this bun,” she explained frankly. “There is an uninterned German baker after me.”

  “And why did you steal it?” asked Miss Ford, pronouncing the H in “why” with a haughty and terrifying sound of suction.

  The Stranger sighed. “Because I couldn’t afford to buy it.”

  “And why could you not afford to buy the bun?” asked Miss Ford. “A big strong girl like you.”

  You will notice that she had had a good deal of experience in social work.

  The Stranger said: “Up till ten o’clock this morning I was of the leisured classes like yourselves. I had a hundred pounds.”

  Lady Arabel was one of the kindest people in the world, but even she quivered at the suggestion of a common leisure. The sort of clothes the Stranger wore Lady Arabel would have called “too dretful.” If one is well dressed one is proud, and may look an angel in the eye. If one is really shabby one is even prouder, one often goes out of one’s way to look angels in the eye. But if one wears a squirrel fur “set,” and a dyed dress that originally cost two and a half guineas, one is damned.

  “You have squandered all that money?” pursued Miss Ford.

  “Yes. In ten minutes.”

  A thrill ran through all six members. Several mouths watered.

  “I am ashamed of you,” said Miss Ford. “I hope the baker will catch you. Don’t you know that your country is engaged in the greatest conflict in history? A hundred pounds…you might have put it in the War Loan.”

  “Yes,” said the Stranger, “I did. That’s how I squandered it.”

  Miss Ford seemed to be partially drowned by this reply. One could see her wits fighting for air.

  But Lady Arabel had not committed herself, and therefore escaped this disaster. “You behaved foolishly,” she said. “We are all too dretfully anxious to subscribe what we can spare to the War Loan, of course. But the State does not expect more than that of us.”

  “God bless it,” said the Stranger loudly, so that everybody blushed. “Of course it doesn’t. But it is fun, don’t you think, when you are giving a present, to exceed expectations?”

  “The State—” began Lady Arabel, but was nudged into silence by Miss Ford. “Of course it’s all untrue. Don’t let her think we believe her.”

  The Stranger heard her. Such people do not only hear with their ears. She laughed.

  “You shall see the receipt,” she said.

  Out of her large pocket she dragged several things before she found what she sought. The sixth member noticed several packets labelled MAGIC, which the Stranger handled very carefully. “Frightfully explosive,” she said.

  “I believe you’re drunk,” said Miss Ford, as she took the receipt. It really was a War Loan receipt, and the name and address on it were: “Miss Hazeline Snow, The Bindles, Pymley, Gloucestershire.”

  Lady Arabel smiled in a relieved way. She had not long been a social worker, and had not yet acquired a taste for making fools of the undeserving. “So this is your name and address,” she said.

  “No,” said the Stranger simply.

  “This is your name and address,” said Lady Arabel more loudly.

  “No,” said the Stranger. “I made it up. Don’t you think ‘The Bindles, Pymley,’ is too darling?”

  “Quite drunk,” repeated Miss Ford. She had attended eight committee meetings that week.

  “S—s—s—sh, Meta,” hissed Lady Arabel. She leaned forward, not smiling, but pleasantly showing her teeth. “You gave a false name and address. My dear, I wonder if I can guess why.”

  “I dare say you can,” admitted the Stranger. “It’s such fun, don’t you think, to get no thanks? Don’t you sometimes amuse yourself by sending postal orders to people whose addresses look pathetic in the telephone book, or by forgetting to take away the parcels you have bought in poor little shops? Or by standing and looking with ostentatious respect at boy scouts on the march, always bearing in mind that these, in their own eyes, are not little boys trotting behind a disguised curate, but British Troops on the Move? Just two pleased eyes in a crowd, just a hundred pounds dropped from heaven into poor Mr. Bonar Law’s wistful hand….”

  Miss Ford began to laugh, a ladylike yet nasty laugh. “You amuse me,” she said, but not in the kind of way that would make anybody wish to amuse her often.

  Miss Ford was the ideal member of committee, and a committee, of course, exists for the purpose of damping enthusiasms.

  The Stranger’s manners were somehow hectic. Directly she heard that laughter the tears came into her eyes. “Didn’t you like what I was saying?” she asked. Tears climbed down her cheekbones.

  “Oh!” said Miss Ford. “You seem to be—if not drunk—suffering from some form of hysteria.”

  “Do you think youth is a form of hysteria?” asked the Stranger. “Or hunger? Or magic? Or—”

  “Oh, don’t recite any more lists, for the Dear Sake!” implored Miss Ford, who had caught this rather pretty expression where she caught her laugh and most of her thoughts—from contemporary fiction. She had a lot of friends in the writing trade. She knew artists too, and an actress, and a lot of people who talked. She very nearly did something clever herself. She continued: “I wish you could see yourself, trying to be uplifting between the munches of a stolen bun. You’d laugh too. But perhaps you never laugh,” she added, straightening her lips.

  “How d’you mean—laugh?” asked the Stranger. “I didn’t know that noise was called laughing. I thought you were just saying ‘Ha—ha.’ ”

  At this moment the Mayor came in. As I told you, he was a grocer, and the Chairman
of the committee. He was a bad Chairman, but a good grocer. Grocers generally wear white in the execution of their duty, and this fancy, I think, reflects their pureness of heart. They spend their days among soft substances most beautiful to touch; and sometimes they sell honest-smelling soaps; and sometimes they chop cheeses, and thus reach the glory of the butcher’s calling, without its painfulness. Also they handle shining tins, marvellously illustrated.

  Mayors and grocers were of course nothing to Miss Ford, but Chairmen were very important. She nodded curtly to the Mayor and grocer, but she pushed the seventh chair towards the Chairman.

  “May I just finish with this applicant?” she asked in her thin inclusive committee voice, and then added in the direction of the Stranger: “It’s no use talking nonsense. We all see through you, you cannot deceive a committee. But to a certain extent we believe your story, and are willing, if the case proves satisfactory, to give you a helping hand. I will take down a few particulars. First your name?”

  “M—m,” mused the Stranger. “Let me see, you didn’t like Hazeline Snow much, did you? What d’you think of Thelma…Thelma Bennett Watkins?…You know, the Rutlandshire Watkinses, the younger branch—”

  Miss Ford balanced her pen helplessly. “But that isn’t your real name.”

  “How d’you mean—real name?” asked the Stranger anxiously. “Won’t that do? What about Iris…Hyde?…You see, the truth is, I was never actually christened…I was born a conscientious objector, and also—”

  “Oh, for the Dear Sake, be silent!” said Miss Ford, writing down “Thelma Bennett Watkins,” in self-defence. “This, I take it, is the name you gave at the time of the National Registration.”

  “I forget,” said the Stranger. “I remember that I put down my trade as Magic, and they registered it on my card as ‘Machinist.’ Yet Magic, I believe, is a starred profession.”